Closing summary
The opening day of litigation brought by Prince Harry and others against the Mirror Group Newspapers alleging unlawful information gathering such as phone hacking has come to a close.
Here are the main takeaways from the day’s revelatory events:
Piers Morgan was aware of the use of unlawful information gathering (UIG) such as phone hacking and ‘blagging’ when he was editor of the Mirror, the court was told. Morgan has previously denied any knowledge of phone hacking taking place on his watch.
A tranche of documents released to the court contain examples that the claimants say show Morgan “must have known” about illegal behaviour at the Mirror when he was editor between 1995 and 2004.
In one alleged incident, Morgan asked a journalist to name the source of a celebrity story and was told “the information had come from voicemails”.
In another, a witness describes how Morgan was “laughing mockingly” as he entertained the Daily Mirror newsroom by repeatedly playing staff a private voicemail left by Paul McCartney for his then girlfriend, Heather Mills.
In another, a witness claims Morgan knew the default pin codes that could be used to illegally access voicemails on different mobile phone networks.
Prince Harry was subject to “appalling” methods of obtaining information about his private life, the claimants’ barrister David Sherborne said.
Morgan has so far not engaged directly with allegations he knew his journalists were using phone hacking and other illegal methods, instead he tweeted an image from animated satire South Park and told an ITV journalist Prince Harry should be the one apologising for invading the privacy of his own family.
Coronation Street actors Michael Turner, aka Michael Le Vell, and Nikki Sanderson, and the ex-wife of Paul Whitehouse, Fiona Wightman, make up the other three claimants in the case.
Unlawful information gathering was both habitual and widespread across all three of the MGN titles from 1991 to 2011, Sherborne said, adding the group was a flood of illegality.
The Mirror Group Newspapers continued to use private investigators even though they had been previously convicted for illegally obtaining private information, Sherborne says.
Court documents show Chelsy Davy, the former girlfriend of the Duke of Sussex, decided that “a royal life was not for her” as a result of alleged unlawful information gathering.
MGN admitted there is “some evidence” of unlawful information gathering (UIG) that “warrants compensation”. In court documents, the group said it “unreservedly apologises” for instances of unlawful information gathering, which the publisher said “will never be repeated”.
Thanks for following the coverage today.
The hearing has concluded for the day and will resume tomorrow.
Prince Harry is the one who should be apologising - Piers Morgan
Piers Morgan has been doorstepped by ITV News about the allegations in today’s High Court hearing.
He told journalists:
All I’m going to say is I’m not going to take lectures on privacy invasion from Prince Harry, somebody who has spent the last three years ruthlessly and cynically invading the Royal family’s privacy for vast commercial gain and told a pack of lies about them.
So I suggest he gets out of court and apologises to his family for the disgraceful invasion of privacy that he’s been perpetrating.
Asked again if he would apologise to the victims of phone hacking, Morgan said:
Prince Harry should be apologising for his disgraceful invasion of privacy of the royal family and others.
‘I’m not going to take lectures on privacy invasion from Prince Harry.’
— ITV News (@itvnews) May 10, 2023
Amid allegations of phone hacking while he was at the Mirror, Piers Morgan tells ITV News Harry should apologise to the royal family for ‘invasion of privacy he’s been perpetrating’https://t.co/P3RH5guPSb pic.twitter.com/4uGvezu5y6
Sherborne has alleged that phone hacking was so widespread at the Sunday Mirror that even the editor was doing it.
He claims that email traffic to Tina Weaver, who edited the Sunday tabloid for more than a decade between 2001 and 2012, shows she was aware of phone hacking.
He concludes the only reasonable inference is this was so Weaver “could conduct some hacking activities herself”.
Coronation Street actor Michael Turner accused of being 'a mole' by co-stars amid alleged phone hacking
Coronation Street actor Michael Turner was accused by fellow cast members of being “a mole” amid alleged phone hacking by journalists, the High Court has been told.
Lawyers for the actor, known professionally as Michael Le Vell, said between 1991 and 2011 he was of “considerable interest” to Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) due to his career and his 2011 arrest for suspected rape, for which he was later found not guilty.
Turner was also an actors’ informal “union rep”, which meant he was “privy to private information about his Coronation Street co-stars”, his legal team said in a court document.
The actor, who is joining the Duke of Sussex in bringing damages claims against the publisher over alleged unlawful information gathering, claims it is “likely” voicemail messages he left on an associate’s phone were “unlawfully accessed and listened to by MGN journalists”.
Sherborne said in the court document that the actor had set out the “enormous” and “long-lasting” impact of these alleged activities “explaining that Coronation Street cast members accused him of being a mole due to his position as union rep, which he was ‘absolutely devastated’ by”.
“He also became extremely paranoid and blamed people close to him for stories which were public, even abandoning his local pub as a result,” the lawyer said.
“He is ‘shocked and horrified’ by MGN’s targeting of him for over 15 years.”
MGN denies Turner’s claims, arguing there is no evidence of voicemail interception or unlawful information gathering relating to him.
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Sherborne is telling the court about the illegal activities of the private investigating firms hired by the Mirror Group Newspapers – a group he calls “the hackers and the blaggers”.
He says the firms intercepted voicemails on mobiles and landlines, placed tracking devices and other forms of surveillance, obtained information such as ex-directory landline numbers, PIN numbers, itemised billing records and unlawful use of credit checks.
The information they provided was then used by the journalists, Sherborne says.
Piers Morgan has responded to claims oversaw illegal behaviour while editor of the Daily Mirror by tweeting an image from an episode of South Park.
The talkTV presenter did not engage directly with allegations he knew his journalists were using phone hacking and other illegal methods to obtain information while editor of the Mirror.
The high court heard allegations on Wednesday that Morgan was part of a culture at Mirror Group Newspapers during the 1990s and 2000s that illegally targeted hundreds of individuals - including Prince Harry.
In one incident, Morgan is alleged to have played a voicemail left by Paul McCartney in the middle of the Mirror’s newsroom. In another, he is alleged to have been told that the basis of a news story came from voicemails.
Rather than respond directly to the allegations he was aware of illegal behaviour, Morgan posted a screengrab from the satirical cartoon which mocked Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex for demanding privacy while also promoting their own books and TV series.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 10, 2023
Ex-Coronation Street actor Nikki Sanderson felt like she was “public property” and experienced abuse in the street following “false insinuations” in articles published by Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), the High Court has been told.
In court documents, the actor’s lawyers claimed she experienced “unusual telephone and media-related activity” which was consistent with the “unauthorised accessing of her voicemails and other unlawful information gathering”, with private information appearing in newspapers with “no legitimate explanation” as to how.
Sherborne said she said it was “‘scary’ feeling like she was always being watched, and ‘upsetting’ that MGN’s conduct caused the lines between her public and private life to blur, making her believe that she was ‘public property’.”
“The impact of the stories on Nikki Sanderson was aggravated by their false insinuations that she was promiscuous, causing her great upset and giving rise to her being subjected to mental and physical abuse, having people shout at her in the street calling her a ‘whore’, ‘slag’ or ‘slut’ and even being physically assaulted on numerous occasions,” Sherborne said.
“It gave rise to her feeling in a constant state of paranoia, distrusting everyone around her.”
In its trial defence, the publisher say Sanderson’s claim is brought too late, but “unreservedly apologises” over four payments made to private investigators which it admits are evidence of instructions to unlawfully obtain her private information.
The publisher also claims that evidence does not suggest Sanderson’s phone was successfully hacked.
The court is taking a short break.
The court has seen new evidence linking Piers Morgan to phone hacking at the Mirror.
Fresh evidence filed to the court includes a claim from the journalist Omid Scobie, who claims he heard Morgan discussing the use of voicemails while doing work experience on the Mirror’s entertainment desk in 2002:
He recalls during one of those days in the office the editor, Piers Morgan, came over to talk to someone about a story relating to Kylie Minogue and her boyfriend James Gooding. Mr Morgan asked how confident they were in the reporting, and was told that the information had come from voicemails.
Former Downing Street official Benjamin Wegg-Prosser recalled asking Morgan how the Daily Mirror had obtained a story about an affair between the England football manager Sven-Göran Eriksson and the television presenter Ulrika Jonsson:
Mr Morgan asked Mr Prosser which network provider he used for his mobile phone and then told him the default pin for that network, and then explained that the default pin numbers were well known and rarely changed, which is how mobile phone messages could be accessed remotely. He then said, with a smile, that the story on Mr Eriksson and Ms Jonsson was obtained through that method.
Former Mirror political editor David Seymour recalled an incident in which Morgan obtained a voicemail left by Paul McCartney, in which the singer sang a Beatles song to his then-girlfriend Heather Mills as part of an attempt to patch up their relationship.
According to the legal filings:
Mr Seymour recalls that he was walking through the newsroom one day, likely in March 2001, and Mr Morgan was standing in the middle with a group of reporters around him holding a tape machine, and played the message to all present a number of times, laughing mockingly. Mr Seymour recalls that the Beatles song played by Mr McCartney was actually And I Love Her.
Morgan has always denied any knowledge or involvement in phone hacking.
Read more here:
Chelsy Davy rejected royal life due to press intrusion, court documents say
A tranche of documents have been filed to the court in support of the claims.
The documents show Chelsy Davy, the former girlfriend of the Duke of Sussex, decided that “a royal life was not for her” as a result of alleged unlawful information gathering by journalists at the Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN).
In court documents, Sherborne said these activities, including the alleged unauthorised accessing of his voicemails, caused the duke “huge distress” and created “a huge amount of paranoia in my relationships”.
Referencing Harry’s witness statement in the case, Sherborne said: “He became immediately suspicious of anyone named in stories about him and felt that he could not trust anybody, even at such a young age. It also caused great challenges in his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy, and made him fear for his and her safety.
“Every time he was in a relationship, or even a rumoured relationship, that whole person’s family, and often their friends, would be ‘dragged into the chaos’ and find themselves the subject of unlawful activity on the part of MGN.
“There was nowhere that was ‘off limits’ for MGN’s newspapers, whose journalists would even manage to book into a hotel in Bazaruto, a small island off the coast of Mozambique, when the Duke of Sussex and Ms Davy tried to escape there and enjoy some peace and quiet.
“They were never on their own, which ‘placed a huge amount of unnecessary stress and strain’ on their relationship.
“Ultimately, MGN’s activities led Ms Davy to make the decision that ‘a royal life was not for her’, which was ‘incredibly upsetting’ for the Duke of Sussex at the time. They also caused their circle of friends to become smaller and smaller, meaning that friendships were lost entirely unnecessarily, and led to ‘huge bouts of depression and paranoia’.”
Updated
The hearing has resumed after lunch and Sherborne is summarising some of the findings of earlier trials covering unlawful information gathering by journalists.
Before the court hearing resumed today, the publisher of the Mirror newspaper admitted there is “some evidence” of unlawful information gathering (UIG) in relation to a High Court challenge brought by the Duke of Sussex that “warrants compensation”.
In court documents released at the start of a trial in London, Mirror Group Newspapers said it “unreservedly apologises” for instances of unlawful information gathering, which the publisher said “will never be repeated”.
The statements form part of the publisher’s defence to claims brought by Harry and other individuals over alleged unlawful information gathering at MGN titles.
Andrew Green KC, representing the publisher, said in the written arguments that it denied allegations of voicemail interception in the cases being examined during the trial. The barrister also said some of the challenges it faces have been brought beyond a legal time limit.
Green said “there is some evidence of the instruction of third parties to engage in other types of UIG in respect of each of the claimants” except for the case of actor Michael Turner whose claim is “entirely denied”.
He added: “MGN unreservedly apologises for all such instances of UIG, and assures the claimants that such conduct will never be repeated. This apology is not made with the tactical objective of reducing damages, MGN accepts that an apology at this stage will not have that effect, but is made because such conduct should never have occurred.”
During the court break, it is important to note that Piers Morgan has always strongly denied any knowledge of phone hacking at the Mirror and previously told the Guardian: “I’ve never hacked a phone nor told anybody to hack a phone.”
The hearing is paused for lunch and will resume at 2pm.
Mirror Group accused in court of leaving 'morality at the door' when gathering information
Sherborne says the risks taken to gather information unlawfully were “worth it” for the Mirror Group, adding they “left morality at the door”.
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MGN took risks not just for celebrities but for other people who were well known for other reasons, Sherborne says.
He gives examples of documents such as invoices connected to the murder victims Millie Dowler and the Soham girls, Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells and the bus driver of the 7/7 bombings bus.
Mirror Group Newspapers used 'blagger' to obtain details about post-natal depression of TV presenter, court hears
MGN made extensive use of the blagger, Christine Hart in order to obtain highly personal and sensitive medical information through blagging GP surgeries, clinics and hospitals, Sherborne says.
This included her obtaining information about the post-natal depression of a famous female television presenter, who has since passed away, he says.
Hart was also used to obtain information about whether the wife of a television comedian was pregnant, about a well-known pop star entering rehab for alcohol and drug addiction and about a football manager having therapy, Sherborne says.
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Sherborne gives another example of Steve Whittamore of JJ Services, who despite his being raided by police in 2003, his arrest in 2004 and conviction in April 2005, was used by MGN to unlawfully obtain private information, by the Daily Mirror until at least December 2005 and by The People until at least October 2006.
Whittamore provided information that Sherborne says no one could have thought was legally obtained.
Sherborne says MGN continued to use the “notorious” Southern Investigations, whose founder Jonathan Rees was arrested and later convicted in 1999.
Sherborne says those at the Mirror Group, including Piers Morgan, must have known Southern Investigations was using unlawful methods to gather information.
The Mirror Group Newspapers continued to use private investigators even though they had been previously convicted for illegally obtaining private information, Sherborne says.
He gives the example of Rachel Barry who despite being convicted in October 1997 for blagging mobile phone bills and obtaining ex-directory phone numbers for newspapers was continually used by MGN including by the Daily Mirror, the day after her conviction, including in relation to Princess Diana’s friend James Hewitt.
Sherborne refers to an email exchange dates 2002 in which editorial manager John Honeywell notes the “frightening” level of costs spent on private investigator services.
Spending millions only makes sense if you’re profiting from the exercise, Sherborne says.
It was not for public interest, it was to sell newspapers, he says.
Sherborne is going through a number of “exchanges” between management at Mirror Group Newspapers and others which he says demonstrates their extensive knowledge of the use of private investigators.
Some of the memos make reference to “illicit” checks, Sherborne says.
Updated
The court is taking a short break.
Piers Morgan aware of phone hacking when at the Mirror, high court hears
The scale and extent of the unlawful methods were used so frequently they were an integral part of their modus operandi, the obvious go to for every story, Sherborne says.
Journalists, desk heads, deputy editors and editors themselves, including Piers Morgan, used or ordered the use of, the unlawful means, Sherborne says.
Updated
Mirror Group Newspapers accused of 'flood of illegality'
The claimants represent a cross-section of claimants but all have one thing in common – they are all victims of unlawful activities which were widespread, Sherborne says.
The activities were known about by the legal department and the Mirror Group’s board, Sherborne says.
Unlawful information gathering was both habitual and widespread across all three of the MGN titles from 1991 to 2011, Sherborne says.
Journalists working on news, nrime, investigations, showbiz, TV, features, picture and sports desks all took part in the unlawful activities, Sherborne says, as well as editors and deputy editors.
It was a flood of illegality, Sherborne says.
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The group of victims also contains those caught up in a newsworthy event or were linked to someone of interest.
Fiona Wightman is the final claimant, she is the ex-wife of the comedian Paul Whitehouse and mother of their two children.
The idea that she is a victim of hacking is surreal to her, Sherborne says.
Among methods of targeting Wightman were attempts to “blag” hospitals into providing hospital records about her health, Sherborne says.
The second of the claimants was Michael Turner, one of the longest-serving actors on Coronation Street, known by his stage name Michael Le Vell, who plays the character Kevin Webster on the soap.
Sherborne tells the court stories about the trials and tribulations of Turner’s life were splashed across the Mirror Group newspapers.
Turner is not the only actor among the four claimants, Sherborne says.
The third claimant is Nikki Sanderson, who played a character called Candice in Coronation Street. She was just 15 years old when the Mirror Group Newspapers started to target her, he says.
Sherborne presents an invoice from the “notorious” Southern Investigations, a private detective agency, to the Mirror Group accounts department in relation to Sanderson’s claim.
Ordered by the Mirror’s features desk, the invoice from Southern Investigations are dated 30 March 1999 two days after Sanderson turned 15 years old
Her tenders age was no protection to her, Sherborne Says. Regardless of the impact this had on her, this was just the first we know of the disclosed private investigator instructions related to her.
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David Sherborne, the barrister representing Prince Harry and others involved in the claim, is now formally opening the case.
He is outlining the claimants in the case, and who they are and what their claims broadly cover.
The first is the Duke of Sussex, he says. Harry was subjected to the most obtrusive methods to gain information about his life, he says.
Prince or not, the blatantly unlawful methods used to get information about Harry’s life away from his royal duties was quite frankly appalling, Sherborne says.
All the claimants were subjected to the same methods, Sherborne says.
Prince Harry will not be in court for the start of the Mirror trial, which will last between six or seven weeks.
The prince flew back to the US immediately after attending his father’s coronation on Saturday but is scheduled to give evidence in person at the start of June.
The initial stages of this trial will deal with broad issues around the extent and knowledge of phone hacking at the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, and People – all titles owned by Mirror Group Newspapers, part of the publishing group Reach.
The company has already paid out more than £100m in settlements and legal fees relating to phone hacking at its titles, with a further £50m set aside to deal with future accusations.
The Mirror’s publisher is trying to stop the ongoing tide of phone hacking claims, which largely relate to alleged illegal behaviour in the 2000s. They argue the claimants have waited too long to start their cases and want a judge to rule that proceedings should come to an end.
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Mirror Group Newspapers phone-hacking trial begins
Good morning, welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of phone hacking claims against Mirror Group Newspapers at the High Court in London.
The case is attracting high levels of interest in part because one of the claimants is Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and later in the litigation he is expected to become the first senior royal since the 19th century to give evidence in a courtroom.
This is the first of Harry’s three phone-hacking cases against British newspaper groups to go to trial, with the royal waiting to hear whether the courts will allow him to proceed with two separate cases against the parent companies of the Sun and the Daily Mail.
Before proceedings begin, get up to speed with this state of play by our media editor Jim Waterson:
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